


No Regrets

by icanseethroughtimesstuff



Series: Thasmin Tumblr Prompts [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Hopeful Ending, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-09 18:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20122990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icanseethroughtimesstuff/pseuds/icanseethroughtimesstuff
Summary: Prompt: The Doctor telling Yaz about her previous companions, could be angst or fluff (lol I made it both).





	No Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> For a-small-collection-of-nonsense on Tumblr, sorry I couldn't find your username on here. It's not as long as the othe prompts because I wrote something similar for Thasmin week (see Old Friends and New if you're interested) and was in danger of stepping on my own toes, hope you like it!

Yaz headed down the Tardis corridor, popcorn in hand ready for her movie night with the Doctor. The boys had gone home for the night but after an off-hand comment about some of her favourite films growing up and finding out the Doctor hadn’t seen any of them, they’d decided to have an evening just the two of them to binge watch and eat their body weight in sugary snacks. Yaz was hardly going to complain about getting the Doctor all to herself for an evening, what with the enormous crush she was carrying that only seemed to get bigger whenever the Doctor smiled, explained something, or did anything at all really.

Yaz arrived at the Doctor’s bedroom door, adjusting the snacks in her hand so she could knock. She heard what sounded like a sniffling followed by a muffled “come in”. _Odd_, she thought before pushing the door open.

The Doctor was hastily fiddling with the remote control to a giant projection screen that covered an entire wall. Yaz just caught a glimpse of a red-headed annoyed looking woman in a wedding dress before the screen cut off and the Doctor turned to face her. Her hair was a bit of a mess, very unlike its usual neat bob, and her eyes were puffy and red.

Yaz dropped the popcorn onto the bedside table and quickly strode over to where the Doctor was perched on the edge of her bed and, kneeling down in front of her. “Doctor what is it, what’s wrong?”

“Yaz! Hi, what brings you here? Nothing’s wrong, why would you ask if something was wrong, I’m absolutely fine, peachy keen one might even say,” she rambled, refusing to make eye contact and instead watching her hands which were fiddling with the hem of her coat sleeve**.**

Yaz took the Doctor’s hands gently and pulled them away from her sleeve, linking their fingers together. She was worried she’d gone a step too far until she looked up into the Doctor’s face. She was staring at their joined hands with what could only be described as an expression of surprised delight. She curled her fingers more firmly around Yaz’s, locking their hands together.

“It’s our movie night, remember?” Yaz prompted as if nothing had happened. “Were you already watching something?” The Doctor’s face morphed into a deer in the headlights expression, but she made no move to pull her hands away.

“Watching something? No why would you even…” she trailed off as she finally caught Yaz’s eyes, taking in the raised eyebrow. She visibly deflated. “Yeah okay, I was. Sorry, I forgot all about our movie night.”

Yaz held her eyes and tried to channel as much understanding as she could through her expression. “What were you watching if you don’t mind my asking?”

The Doctor seemed to hesitate, torn by indecision, before finally, hesitantly, pulling her hands out of Yaz’s grasp, picking up the remote and turning the screen back on.

The same woman as before popped back up, although the scene was paused. She looked to be slightly older than the Doctor appeared to be (although Yaz knew she was much older than she looked), and she was gesturing angrily at something or someone on the other side of the screen. She appeared to be stood in…

“Wait, is that the Tardis?” Yaz asked incredulously.

“Yep, from back in my grungy phase,” the Doctor replied with a slight smile. She pressed another button on the remote and the screen seemed to pull back, revealing a tall, skinny man with spiky hair, looking incredibly confused. She nudged Yaz in the arm. “Care to guess who that is?”

Yaz was about to reply she had no earthly idea, but stopped herself. _“Half an hour ago I was a white haired Scotsman.”_ She’d always thought that was just some nonsense caused by the knock to the head as she smashed through the train roof, but what if it was true? “Is that…you?”

“Bingo, ten points to Yasmin Khan! This was a very long time ago, from my perspective at least. In linear time I’d say it was about…thirteen years ago.” The Doctor’s smile was a bit bigger now as she turned to look at the screen.

“Okay, and how long has it been for you?” Yaz wondered.

The Doctor scrunched her nose, deep in thought. Finally she said, “about 1500 years, give or take a few centuries.”

Yaz had heard about people’s jaws dropping in shock but didn’t think it actually happened in real life until that moment. “You’re 1500 years old?”

“Actually I’m closer to 3000 by now,” she replied absently, still staring at the screen.

Yaz’s mind was reeling. She knew the Doctor was older than she looked, something around the eyes whenever something bad happened that she couldn’t stop suggested she’d seen more than any of them could imagine. But _3000 years_? Yaz couldn’t imagine carrying that much history around in her mind. She wondered what made her keep going, why she kept travelling all this time, but when she looked at her face as she stared longingly at the screen she thought she had an inkling.

“Who is she?” Yaz asked, sitting down next to the Doctor.

The Doctor startled as though she’d forgotten she wasn’t alone before relaxing. “Her name was Donna Noble. Well, Donna Temple-Noble now I suppose. She used to travel with me like you do.”

Yaz didn’t need to ask to know something bad had happened, it was written all over the Doctor’s face, a grief so old she couldn’t even begin to comprehend it. Resisting the temptation to ask what had happened to her, she instead asked, “What was she like?”

Yaz was happy to see a smile returning to the Doctor’s face. “Funny. Brave. Compassionate. And so much more capable than she ever believed.”

With another burst of courage, Yaz took the Doctor’s free hand and leaned into her side. “Tell me a story about her. Something fun you did together.”

The Doctor’s smile turned into a full blown grin. “Remember at Kerblam when we were hiding in the alcove and I told you about meeting Agatha Christie and fighting a giant wasp?” Yaz smiled herself at the memory and nodded. “She was there. She helped me solve it all, don’t know what I would have done without her.”

Yaz frowned in confusion. “Wait, how come you didn’t mention her before then?”

The Doctor’s smile dulled slightly. “I…don’t usually talk about the people I used to travel with. It can get a bit painful. Most of them didn’t get happy endings.” As she said this she looked at Yaz with a warning in her eyes. Whether it was a warning that she didn’t want to talk about this any more or about Yaz’s own future she couldn’t be sure.

“I mean if you’re not comfortable we can stop,” Yaz said carefully, “but I can’t imagine bottling everything up does you much good.”

Yaz jumped slightly when she felt the Doctor’s arm go around her shoulders and pull her even closer into her side. Unable to help herself, Yaz nuzzled into her shoulder. “Yasmin Khan, wise beyond her years,” the Doctor murmured into her hair, “you’re absolutely right.” She felt a tingle run down her spine at the contact and relaxed into the touch. The Doctor raised her head back to the screen.

“Go on then,” Yaz prompted, “how did she help?” With that the Doctor told the story of her being poisoned with cyanide that she’d told her before, except this time without omitting Donna. By the end of it they were both laughing out loud. “She really couldn’t think of any other way to shock you?” Yaz asked through giggles.

“Hey it worked,” the Doctor grinned, “I’m still here because of that quick thinking. I mean, _I’d_ still be here but my past self would have regenerated a lot sooner.”

Yaz could already see the sadness fading away, replaced with happy memories of her old friend. “She sounds brilliant. Have you got any other stories?”

“What about Donna, or someone else?”

“What ever you like,” she replied, linking their free hands together once more.

They passed the rest of the evening like that, the Doctor telling fun stories about her past friends and companions, occasionally bringing them up on the screen, cycling through various different Tardis designs and a succession of tall, gangly men, one with prominent ears in a leather jacket, then a much younger man in a tweed blazer and sporting a bright red bow tie, followed by an older man with a shock of white hair wearing a familiar suit (the white haired Scotsman, Yaz presumed).

But by and large the Doctor kept the focus on the other occupants of the Tardis. She saw Rose first and smiled at the story of her attempts to make Queen Victoria say ‘we are not amused’. She looked a little like the Doctor, Yaz thought, with her bottle-blonde hair and big expressive eyes and wondered if that had been an unconscious choice on the Doctor’s part when she regenerated.

Next came Martha, the clever kind Doctor who’d run rings around Shakespeare and saved the whole planet more or less single-handedly. There seemed to be a certain amount of regret when the Doctor spoke about her, almost as if she was ashamed of herself over something, but Yaz was trying to keep the atmosphere light so decided to save that particular question for another time.

Next, she talked about reconnecting with Donna after first meeting her on her wedding day and told them another story about them being stuck in Pompeii just before the eruption of Vesuvius, and how her compassion convinced the Doctor to go back and save someone.

Amy and Rory came next, and the way the Doctor spoke about them made it sound like they’d been almost like a family, not just friends who travelled together. She told her about the vampires in Venice, and the dinosaurs on a spaceship, about how Amy never stopped teasing her and how Rory never stopped charging into danger with them no matter how scared he was.

There was a pause after that, as though she was steeling herself for some big task. After a moment she began to talk about a woman called River, a woman she married, and if there had been something almost reverent in the way she’d spoken about Rose, she seemed nothing less than awestruck now. She told Yaz about their first meeting, the day she died in the library, and of the day they married to save all of time and space.

Of all the people she’d spoken about, the memories she shared about River were the most tinged with sadness. Given that they were married and it seemed highly unlikely that they would ever see each other again, that was hardly surprising though.

She brightened up when she talked about Clara, a tiny little firecracker who seemed as eager as the Doctor herself to throw herself into whatever trouble they came across. She heard about her facing down Cybermen, pretending to be the Doctor to buy herself some time. If they’d have met, Yaz wasn’t sure whether she would have been delighted by her or infuriated and figured it probably would have been both.

Finally, the Doctor spoke about Bill, a delightful, curious, inquisitive young woman who’d only travelled with the Doctor a short time but had nonetheless made a huge impression. She heard about them saving a new sentient species of robots together and brokering a peace between them and the human colonists who created them, and about saving a giant fish that lived in the Thames. Yaz felt sure she would have loved Bill.

“But the honest truth is,” the Doctor said, hours later, Yaz still curled into her side, “none of them were the same once it was over. Some of them died, some were forced to leave, one even forgot me. There’s a reason I wanted you to be sure when you came on board.”

Yaz could hear the words the Doctor wasn’t saying. _I can’t keep you safe, you’d be better off at home with your families, I don’t want to lose you too._ She pulled back from their embrace and lifted her hand to the Doctor’s chin, tilting her head to face her.

“Before you crashed through that train, I was bored out of my mind. I was stuck, I wasn’t moving forward at work like I wanted to. I can’t speak for all the other people who’ve travelled with you, all I can say is I’m willing to take the risk. Seeing all these things, being with you, it’s all worth it.” Feeling bold, she leaned forward and kissed the Doctor on the cheek.

The Doctor’s faced flushed a brilliant shade of red, but she held Yaz’s eyes. “I won’t keep asking if you’re sure cause it sounds like you’ve made up your mind already. I swear I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe. And Ryan and Graham too of course. But I won’t make any promises I can’t keep, I’ve done that before and it never ends well.”

“I never asked you to keep me safe, and neither did the others,” Yaz interrupted her, “and I know you’ll do your best because that’s what you always do. I meant what I said, it’s all worth the risk.”

The Doctor leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together. “Even me?” she asked, and Yaz could swear she detected something hopeful in her voice.

“Especially you,” Yaz murmured, and she closed the gap to leave a brief, chaste kiss on the Doctor’s lips.

They actually did get around to watching a movie eventually, although there was a bit more cuddling and kissing first. No more talking though, Yaz felt like she’d said everything she needed to and she gathered the Doctor felt much the same.

She’d made her peace with the fact that when she did finally go home she’d be a completely different person to the one who left, if she went home at all. She was also more aware now than she’d ever been that she more than likely wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of her life with the Doctor, and the Doctor definitely wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of hers with her. Who knows how many more thousands of years she had left to see?

Yaz however fully intended to do something she’d struggled with in the past, live in the now and not allow herself to get too bogged down in the maybe’s and possibilities of the future. Whatever was developing between her and the Doctor after tonight was worth every risk as far as she was concerned, and she fully intended to enjoy it for as long as she possibly could.

No regrets.

_The End_

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comments if you have the time, they're always very much appreciated!


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